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The action, which is part of the union’s campaign for the reversal of pay cuts announced in December’s budget, will stop cooperation with any new work practices or modernisation measures and introduce a ‘work to rule,’ which will block work carried out on a voluntary basis outside of members’ formal contracts of employment.

The action will also require members to refuse to cooperate with staff redeployment or take on work associated with newly vacant posts or unfilled promotional posts, and refuse to perform higher duties without the payment of appropriate allowances. There will also be a managed withdrawal from participation in workplace and national partnership structures.

Although the campaign is being co-ordinated across the union, the application of the industrial action will be modified to take account of the specific conditions in each sector.

The detail of the action in each sector has been decided by IMPACT’s elected divisional executive committees, which have been informed by consultation with branches including divisional council meetings. Details of how the action will be conducted in each sector are being circulated to local branches.

IMPACT general secretary Peter McLoone said this was the beginning of the latest stage of the union’s campaign to protect jobs, pay and pensions, and that further actions were likely. “I want to stress that this is the initial stage of our industrial action campaign. The campaign tactics are under constant review by the union’s elected executive and senior officials and further measures, including strike action in some circumstances, remain live options at the appropriate time,” he said.

Last December IMPACT’s Central Executive Committee decided that industrial action - firstly in the form of total non-co-operation with the management change agenda – was a crucial part of the union’s response to pay cuts. The union has said that the industrial action element of its strategy includes the possibility of:

• Selective strike action to be used intermittently alongside the sustained work-to-rule and non-cooperation campaign

• Other forms of disruptive action

• Targeting specific areas in response to the threat of compulsory redundancies and disciplinary action for non-cooperation

• Demonstration and protests in conjunction with service users as appropriate

• Consideration of a wide scale strike at a strategic point in the campaign.

In line with the union’s approach throughout last year, IMPACT continues to strive for a co-ordinated union response involving all of the ICTU-affiliated public service unions. The ICTU Public Services Committee has agreed to IMPACT’s proposal that workplace meetings should arranged on a joint-union basis this month to ensure that members understand and support both the overall strategy and the specific measures being proposed - and to prevent management from seeking to weaken the union position by singling out members of particular unions.

A meeting of IMPACT’s industrial staff took place last week, where it was agreed that our Assistant General Secretaries (AGS) should take the initiative in convening these meetings. It was also agreed that, in cases where it is not possible to quickly organise joint-union meetings, our AGSs would work with IMPACT branches to ensure that workplace meetings are organised for our members as soon as possible.

The CEC also agreed that the union should now develop a much more sophisticated political campaigning structure, which will include input through its branches at local level. And the 2009 media and public relations campaign work will continue and develop as the campaign unfolds this year